Bal Thackeray
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. Readers will be able to edit existing articles and post new articles directly |
Contents |
Bal Thackeray was...
Bal Thackeray: The mascot of Marathi pride and Hindutva
PTI | Nov 17, 2012,
From drawing cartoons with potent messages to etching for himself a larger-than-life image on Maharashtra's political landscape, Bal Thackeray was the mascot of Marathi pride and Hindutva who aroused extreme emotions but could never be ignored.
MUMBAI: From drawing cartoons with potent messages to etching for himself a larger-than-life image on Maharashtra's political landscape, Bal Thackeray was the mascot of Marathi pride and Hindutva who aroused extreme emotions but could never be ignored.
A rabble-rouser, the Shiv Sena supremo, who lived to be 86 years old, was idolized with almost God-like devotion by his frenzied sainiks and demonized in equal measure by detractors.
The maverick ways of Thackeray — Maharashtra's tallest leader — always led both his friends and rivals to underestimate him politically as he called the shots in state politics, often playing the role of a kingmaker without himself becoming the king. For some, the Tiger of Maharashtra was also a cultural icon.
Thackeray, a fiery orator who could bring the country's bustling financial capital to a standstill with a wave of his finger, started out as a cartoonist alongside R K Laxman at the English daily Free Press Journal in the late 1950s. But he soon charted a new course when he launched a cartoon weekly 'Marmik' in 1960.
Bal Thackeray, the man
Early life
Born on January 23, 1926, he was the second of four children of Kesav Sitaram Thackeray, a writer who actively participated in the 'Samyukta Maharashtra Andolan' — the movement for creation of a separate state for Marathi-speaking people with Bombay as its capital.
The Marathi manoos (human) and politics
The weekly contained satirical pieces that fired up the "Marathi manoos" to fight for their identity and existence in a city witnessing growing influx of migrants.
Thackeray's pro-Marathi plank, that propounded 'Maharashtra for Maharashtrians', saw his party breaking ranks with his long-standing ideological ally BJP in 2007 presidential election when he chose to back UPA's presidential nominee, Pratibha Patil, who is a Maharashtrian.
He even criticized cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar in 2009 for remarking that Mumbai belonged to the whole of India.
Thackeray took to politics as fish to water as he launched Shiv Sena on June 19, 1966 to champion the cause of Marathi 'sons-of-the-soil', seeking job security for Maharashtrians, who were then facing stiff competition from Gujaratis and south Indians.
The frail-looking Thackeray, through his fiery oratory skills, caught the imagination of young Maharashtrians which many felt bordered on jingoism and chauvinism.
Army of street fighters became a political party
The self-confessed admirer of Adolf Hitler soon raised a veritable army of street fighters whom he would use to obtain jobs for the Maharashtrian youth in numerous textile and other industrial units dotting Bombay, earning the epithet of 'Hindu Hriday Samrat' (emperor of Hindu hearts), in the process.
Though Thackeray never contested an election himself, he sowed the seeds of a full-fledged party when his Shiv Sainiks began controlling trade unions in a variety of industries, including Bollywood.
Shiv Sena grew fast into a well-oiled political machine and gained control over the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation in the 1980s, riding the pro-Marathi plank.
1993 riots
Many believe the communal riots in the aftermath of the 1993 Mumbai blasts in which Shiv sainiks were alleged to have played the pivotal role, polarised Hindu votes to the advantage of the Sena-BJP combine.
A judicial commission headed by Justice B N Srikrishna, which had probed the riots, accused Thackeray of sparking anti-Muslim violence in Mumbai, which claimed over 1,000 lives.
Justice Srikrishna described Thackeray as a "veteran general who commanded his loyal Shiv sainiks to retaliate by organised attacks against Muslims" during the riots.
1995: alliance with BJP
Thackeray's biggest moment in politics came when he struck an alliance with BJP in 1995 and formed its government in the state for the first time after tempering his strident pro-Marathi ideology and embracing a broader Hindu nationalist agenda. He ran this government by what he himself called a "remote control". However, he never occupied the post of chief minister.
Aloof style
A firm believer in aphorism that familiarity breeds disregard, Thackeray meticulously created a larger-than-life image of himself, eschewing mingling with supporters and making up for that by giving grand 'darshan' from the balcony of his heavily-guarded Bandra home Matoshree and giving rabble-rousing speeches at his famous Dussehra rallies.
Pakistan and Muslims
Pakistan and Muslims were often the target of vitriolic attacks by Thackeray, who once likened Muslims to "cancer".
"Islamic terrorism is growing and Hindu terrorism is the only way to counter it. We need suicide bomb squads to protect India and Hindus," Thackeray had said.
In December 2003, Shiv Sena activists damaged the cricket pitch at Agra which was supposed to host a match between Pakistan and India. In April 2005, Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena, the students wing of Shiv Sena, attempted to prevent an India-Pakistan one day International in New Delhi.
Thackeray also targeted Bollywood icon Dilip Kumar, after he was presented Pakistan's highest civilian award. In 2010, Shiv Sena threatened to stop release of Shah Rukh Khan starrer "My Name is Khan" over the actor's remarks favouring inclusion of Pakistani cricketers in IPL.
Lord of Mumbai
Seated on a throne with multiple images of a tiger, Thackeray virtually lorded over Mumbai for years, receiving political leaders, captains of business and industry and film personalities at his residence, all without holding any position of power.
He was known as much for his unconventional views, which he never fought shy of airing, as for his assiduously created persona, at times leading to run-ins with the law.
His penchant for strident speeches landed him in trouble when he was disenfranchised for six years between December 11, 1999 and December 10, 2005, following a high court ruling and Election Commission notification for appealing to the people to vote on communal lines.
Mellowing
Thackeray was a considerably mellowed man later in life when he said in his party mouthpiece "Saamna", "I am not against every Muslim but only those Muslims who live in this country but don't obey the law of the land."
After the July 11, 2006 train bombings in Mumbai in which 187 people were killed, he "saluted" Muslims who joined in observing a two-minute silence to mourn the dead.
Known for his anti-migrant views, Thackeray ruffled the feathers of Hindi-speaking politicians when he described Biharis as a "burden" in many places in the country in the aftermath of attacks on north Indians by activists of MNS, floated by his nephew Raj Thackeray.
For all his fulminations against Biharis, Thackeray was all praise for chief minister Nitish Kumar for ushering in development in the backward state.
Hitler
In an interview to a national English daily, Thackeray was once quoted as having praised even Hitler.
"Hitler did very cruel and ugly things. But he was an artist, I love him (for that). You have to think (about) the magic he had. He was a miracle...killing Jews was wrong. But the good part about Hitler was that he was an artist. He was a daredevil. He had good qualities and bad. I may also have good qualities and bad," Thackeray had said.
His views on the Fuehrer illustrated his own persona that seamlessly blended the affectionate tenderness of an artist that emotionally bound generations of Maharashtrians to the Shiv Sena, and the calculated aggression of a hard-boiled, tough-talking politician.
Political setback
In 1991, Thackeray's party suffered its first major blow when Chhagan Bhujbal, who had served twice as Sena's mayor of Mumbai, defected to Congres in protest against Thackeray's opposition to the Mandal commission report on reservations for OBCs.
The biggest setback Thackeray received was in 2005, when Raj, his nephew, left Shiv Sena and formed his own political party, MNS, in 2006, a development that also dashed Sena-BJP's hopes to return to power.
Personal tragedies
Thackeray suffered a personal loss when his wife Meena died in 1995. The next year, Thackeray's eldest son Bindumadhav died in a road accident.
In 2012 Thackeray's health started failing him. At Sena's Dussehra rally in Mumbai on October 24, the "tiger's roar" was missing. In a video-recorded address, he virtually announced his retirement from public life and urged his followers to stand by son Uddhav and grandson Aditya, setting out the succession plan in Shiv Sena.
Sujata Anandan on Mr Thackeray's politics
Aayush Soni OZY July 30, 2014 adds: During forty years of governance, Thackeray, a former cartoonist turned cigar-smoking, xenophobic, Hitler-loving politician, stirred up controversy with almost every move he made at the helm of a crucial political group.
Soon after founding the Shiv Sena in 1966, Thackeray demanded that Gujaratis and South Indians leave Mumbai because they were depriving native Maharashtrians of employment opportunities. But his identity mongering didn’t stop there; Thackeray was later accused of inciting communal riots in Bombay in December 1992. Yet, such was his influence that Thackeray was never once convicted in any of the riots cases. And, people loved him.
Samrat: How the Shiv Sena Changed Mumbai Forever (a book published by HarperCollins India/ 2014) is an incisive account in which Sujata Anandan, a journalist for the Hindustan Times newspaper details how Thackeray and his party left an indelible mark on the politics of one of the most important cities in Asia. She spoke to Aayush Soni/ OZY about Thackeray’s changing political positions, his campaign for “Marathi pride” and the modern face of the political party.
Aayush Soni’s questions and observations have been boldfaced:
Bal Thackeray’s start. How he entered politics — and how he ended up creating such a cult of identity surrounding Maharashtrians (people from the state of Maharashtra)
He began [public] life with a very healthy contempt of politicians … the Shiv Sena was never meant to be a political organization. It was just meant to be a cultural organization. There were three kinds of Shiv Saininks — the ones who joined for the Marathi [cultural] cause … and those who indulged in violence. [Those who] joined for the Marathi ethos thought that the Shiv Sena was a cultural organization, neither on the left or the right, but just to protect Marathi culture and language.
What did the Mumbai of Thackeray’s age look like? [Had] local Marathis begun to feel like “second-class citizens” in the capital of their own state. Thackeray capitalized on that sentiment.
Maharashtra was a very peculiar state because it was cosmopolitan and had people from all communities. So you had Bohra Muslims, Gujaratis, Sindhis, South Indians, Punjabis … all kinds of people. This was also an industrial city — and the industrialists were all Gujaratis and Parsis and Bohra Muslims. The bureaucracy and top management in the private sector was filled with South Indians. But the workers were all Maharashtrians — they were migrating to the city from other parts of Maharashtra, which were very backward, economically. In the ‘50s and ‘60s, the government undertook a major redevelopment exercise of south Bombay [the city’s posh neighborhood] … workers couldn’t afford the new houses that came up. So they found that they were being pushed further into the suburbs and they weren’t getting the better jobs.
Bal Thackeray was ever the flip-flop man: blowing hot, blowing cold, in love with the enemy one day and hating his friends most of the time. But if there was one emotion that truly defined the Sena tiger, it was fear — not exactly the fear that he instilled among various sections of the people over four decades, but fear for his life. And at the root of that fear was the alleged Communist conspiracy of the 1960s to “assassinate” this man who was perhaps never destined for greatness but had that greatness thrust upon him, almost against his will.
When did Thackeray go from this narrative of dealing with the outsiders to coming into a full political ideology? He eventually found his way to Hindutva, the right-wing philosophy behind Shiv Sena and now related to the BJP.
He cold-bloodedly shifted to Hindutva politics because the Marathi issue only worked for 7 to 8 years. After that, the Sena was on the verge of becoming irrelevant. And the Marathi issue didn’t work outside Bombay … In other cities like Nasik, Nagpur, Kolhapur, people didn’t care. So then he began to experiment with Hindutva politics and by the mid-80s, he honed [that ideology]. It was a cold-blooded and calculated shift.
Thackeray’s continued relevance to politics [in 2014] in this very important state — the second most populous in India. How does that manifest?
Even in the Lok Sabha [the national general] elections [of 2014], the Shiv Sena party made ample use of Bal Thackeray. The campaign was in his name. There is a very clear understanding in the Sena that Uddhav [Thackeray’s son who now heads the party] doesn’t have the charisma and Raj [his nephew who broke away to form his own political party, because he’s away from the Sena, the impact is lost. Uddhav is a better person and he’s a gentleman. He always wanted the image of his father’s party to be cleaned up because he didn’t like that goonda [thug] kind of image. But somehow the Shiv Sainiks don’t allow him to do that. He might want to clean up the party but he has no charisma and has to ride on Bal Thackeray’s image. So they are going to make ample use of him in the election campaign.
Aayush Soni is a journalist living in New Delhi. Follow him on Twitter @AayushSoni.
